# Crime (2021)

> A cocaine-addicted Scottish detective unravelling under a mental breakdown hunts for a missing schoolgirl.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/88874

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Returning Series
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Irvine Welsh, Dean Cavanagh
- Network: BritBox, ITVX
- Cast: Dougray Scott, Joanna Vanderham, Jamie Sives, Sarah McCardie, Laura Fraser, Michael Abubakar, Angela Griffin, Allison McKenzie
- TMDB rating: 7.2/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt12759778/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: bleak, tense, gritty, paranoid, melancholic

## Synopsis

Crime (2021-2023) is a British crime drama series created by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh, produced for ITVX and BritBox. Dougray Scott plays Detective Inspector Ray Lennox, a Scottish detective whose investigation into the disappearance of a schoolgirl is tangled with his own cocaine addiction and a mental breakdown that threatens his career and sanity. Joanna Vanderham co-stars as his partner, Detective Sergeant Amanda Drummond, while Jamie Sives, Laura Fraser and Angela Griffin round out a cast of police officers, witnesses and families caught in the case. The engine of the show is a missing-persons hunt pursued through grimy streets, interview rooms and damaged homes, with each episode peeling back another layer of the girl's world and Lennox's own unravelling. Across two six-episode seasons it works as a tightly wound, serialized crime story rather than a case-of-the-week format. Set in present-day Scotland, it carries the bleak, unsentimental register of Welsh's earlier work, with tense, paranoid atmosphere, moral murk and a central character whose inner collapse keeps the viewer unsettled. Fans of Line of Duty, True Detective and Trainspotting will find resonance in its gritty realism, compromised protagonist and dark Scottish texture.

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